[Marxism] Whatever Became Of What’s-His-N =?windows-1252?Q?ame=2C_The_Radic

[Louis Proyect]

Eli Stephens wrote:
> Maybe I'm misinterpreting the word "vehicle." Yes, the Green Party is a 
> "vehicle" for getting out such a message. A skateboard, perhaps. But certainly 
> not a bus, or a train, or any kind of vehicle that has demonstrated the ability 
> to get "such a message" out to significantly more people than, say, an old SWP 
> campaign or a current PSL campaign. Would that it were true.

You'll note that I said, "the Green Party *was* a vehicle for getting 
out such a message." I no longer think that it is. Perhaps if the 
Demogreens are sent on their way, it might once again be possible but I 
am really not sure.

I thought that, for example, Howie Hawkins's campaign was a very good 
vehicle for basic socialist (or anti-capitalist at least) ideas. Here's 
the sort of thing he was saying:

http://hawkinsforsenate.net/issues/Independent-Politics.html

The problems of injustice, war, and the environment are not going to be 
resolved by reforms of the existing social system. The very structure of 
capitalism generates social injustice, war, and environmental 
degradation. Based on a competitive struggle to survive, businesses must 
grow bigger in order to survive the competition. That means they must 
exploit their workers as much as they can get away with in order to take 
in more profits and reinvest in expansion. That inherent growth dynamic 
of capitalism means the capitalist economy grows blindly without any 
sense of reciprocity or balance with the ecological systems that sustain 
it, just like cancer grows in an organism until it exhausts and kills 
its host. The competitive struggle for growth in capitalism also breeds 
endless wars as capitalist governments compete with each other on behalf 
of their own capitalists for access to resources, markets, and labor.

If we are going to build a society that is ecologically sustainable and 
at peace with itself as well as nature, we are going to have to replace 
capitalism with a democratic economy that the people own and control 
collectively. Traditional democratic socialisms focused on overcoming 
the exploitation of workers, the oppression of women and minorities, and 
militarism and war. Today, as we face multiple ecological crises ranging 
from global warming and mass extinctions to the depletion of the oil 
that fuels our economy, we need an ecological socialism that builds upon 
the best libertarian and democratic traditions of socialism to address 
the ecological crisis.

An ecological socialist economy would democratically plan production and 
distribution to use renewable resources on a sustainable yield basis and 
to fairly distribute that sustainable production to meet everyone's 
basic material needs. It would be a decentralized economy, with a 
substantial measure of local and regional self-reliance, in order to 
make democratic management transparent and participatory and to 
integrate and harmonize production with the unique ecological assets of 
each bioregion.

An ecological approach to politics links social and ecological problems. 
Ecology studies the relationships among organisms and their environment. 
Political ecology brings human institutions and ideologies into this 
holistic perspective. From that perspective we find historically that 
the same institutions and ideas that cause the exploitation and 
oppression of humans also cause the degradation and destruction of the 
environment. Both are rooted in hierarchical, exploitative, and 
alienated social systems that systematically produce human oppression 
and ecological destruction.

The problem is deeper than capitalism alone. It is rooted in social 
hierarchy and domination. The misuse and abuse of people extends into a 
domineering regard for nature as well, whether we look at ancient 
kingdoms and empires that exploited peasantries, bureaucratic states 
like the old Soviet Union or contemporary China , or capitalist states.

That means the fights against racism, sexism, class exploitation, 
bureaucratic domination, war, and all other forms of social domination 
and hierarchy are central to the movement for an ecologically 
sustainable society. In order to harmonize society with nature, we must 
harmonize human with human.

Ecological socialism carries forward the traditional values of the Left: 
freedom, equality, and solidarity. It seeks to realize the socialist 
ideal of a truly democratic society without class exploitation or social 
domination. But ecological socialism expands this vision of a classless, 
nonhierarchical society that is harmonized with itself to include an 
ecological society that is harmonized with nature as well.

We should fight now for every democratic, justice, and environmental 
reform that is consistent with the ecological socialist future we seek. 
But as we fight for immediate improvements, we must also put forward the 
ecological socialist vision and the need for fundamental change to 
resolve the problems we face.